


Survive by Forgetting

by Solaris242, xfirefly9x



Category: Stargate Atlantis
Genre: F/M, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-05-07
Updated: 2016-05-07
Packaged: 2018-06-06 22:10:22
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 11,117
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6772273
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Solaris242/pseuds/Solaris242, https://archiveofourown.org/users/xfirefly9x/pseuds/xfirefly9x
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When Sheppard and Ronon are taken hostage, Carter is the only one who can save them. (Artwork by dreigiau/neela is <a href="http://archiveofourown.org/works/6727852">here</a>.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	Survive by Forgetting

“Receiving transmission from Gate Team 1,” a technician Carter hadn’t met before told her.  
She looked up from her clipboard and nodded, requesting, “Put them through.” She watched as the technician - who she’d have to officially meet and familiarise herself with later - fiddled with the control panel, and then a burst of static came through, followed by a familiar voice.  
“They’ve got Sheppard and Ronon,” Teyla said. McKay mumbled something indistinguishable in the background. Teyla continued. “They’re willing to negotiate with Colonel Carter, and no one else. She’s to come alone.”  
Carter frowned, her fingers tightening on the clipboard. “They’re safe?”  
“For now,” McKay said, impatience in his voice. “Probably.”  
“I thought the Raldians were friendly.”  
“About that,” McKay said dryly. “They weren’t there.”  
“We were attacked at what’s left of their town,” Teyla added.  
“What? By whom?”  
“We think it was scavengers.”  
Carter glanced around at the concerned faces in the control room. All of them looked to her for guidance, for her orders. The newness of her position at Atlantis hadn’t yet worn off - she felt the pressure of their trust weigh on her shoulders.  
This was up to her now. No team to back her up. No orders from someone else to follow. What she decided would either save Sheppard and Ronon or condemn them.  
“I’ll pack my things,” she said quietly. “Teyla, McKay. Return to Atlantis as soon as possible. You’re going to hold up the fort while I’m away.”  
“Yes, ma’am,” Teyla agreed.  
She heard McKay say something about finally being in power, rolled her eyes, and then waved to the technician to cut the transmission.  
“Is there a jumper ready to go?” she asked.  
The technician nodded. “By the time you’re ready to take off, it’ll be there.”  
“Thanks,” she said, offering a grim smile. “Put me on speaker.”  
“You’re on,” the technician said a few moments later.  
She hesitated, forming what she wanted to say in her head before she spoke. “This is Carter,” she started. “Two of ours have been taken hostage. I’m going to go and find out what the hell’s going on and negotiate. In the meantime, no Gate travel, and Teyla and McKay will be standing in for me once they return to Atlantis.” A pause. “I’m going to bring our boys back.”  
She nodded at the technician; he shut off the speaker, and waited for further instructions. “You heard what I said,” she said, looking from him to the other worried faces around her. “Do your jobs as usual, and stay safe. I’ll be back as soon as I can.”  
Carter left for her quarters, packed a bag, changed, and headed for the jumper bay. The solitude of the puddle jumper she entered hit her hard. This was up to her now. Sheppard and Ronon - and everyone else in the Atlantis mission team - were relying on her.  
Pulling up coordinates sent through by Teyla and McKay, she did a quick check of the jumper, and then flew it to the gate. The gate kawhooshed, and her team let her through. She flew through the gate and out into another place, another world. 

 

It occurred to her later that maybe, in her new position, she shouldn’t be negotiating when the lives of her team are at risk. But then, she had always thought that to be a stupid concept. If lives were at stake, someone should do something. Sitting around and waiting wasn’t going to help them.  
That was her preferred tactic: taking action. Too often, politics got in the way of saving lives. Ironically, this trip, she would need to both take action and to be political to get their boys back safely.  
Carter swallowed. She had locked onto the coordinates from Teyla and McKay as she shot out the gate. Now, she double checked them. Nearly a half hour had passed, and there was no sign of civilisation. Given the short briefing - that was a result of her even more brief decision to leave Atlantis without a leader in order to rescue two of their own - she wasn’t sure what to expect.  
The Raldians that Gate Team 1 had gone after were placid townsfolk, based in a small area not far from the stargate. They were bakers, predominantly. Traders. They had been peaceful and willing to coexist with them - until this mission.  
Carter looked out across the lands she passed over, scanning it for signs of life. Nothing. Then, something between the trees off to the right. She squinted at the area she’d seen something in, surprised when she caught another glimpse. It was a dead town: the Raldians former residence.  
Buildings lay in ruins. Amongst the overgrown flora that surrounded the buildings - grass at knee-height and a few ferns starting to creep over buildings - was the marketplace. Spoiled food spilled from crates and overturned carts, and rotting piles occupied the centre of the market.  
The scene was oddly beautiful, in a post-apocalyptic kind of way. The town was simple, but had clearly been quite established until its downfall. Given the food scraps lying around, she couldn’t imagine it had been in this state for long.  
She wondered what had led to it falling into its current state. Was it natural causes or something more sinister? Had the scavengers that had taken Sheppard and Ronon hostage done this, or were they just scavengers?  
She realised she was chewing on her lower lip, and stopped. No. No point in worrying. Whatever had happened in the town happened long ago. It couldn’t be saved.  
Sheppard and Ronon could be, though.  
Still, she couldn’t help but wonder what had happened to the Raldians. Where were they now? If they were still alive, that was. Were the scavengers in the process of taking over the town to call it their own? Would she come across them if she landed and walked around?  
Perhaps most importantly, where were the people that held Sheppard and Ronon captive? She could see no signs of movement.  
Carter considered stopping by to investigate, but she had a feeling the scavengers wouldn’t keep them there; there seemed no place suitable for keeping hostages, nowhere that was still intact enough. Frowning, she wondered what to do.  
Her team awaited her. She had to decide quickly. 

 

Instead of setting down, she did a quick flyover and searched the area from the sky, just in case; when she saw nothing, she continued on, ignoring the coordinates she had locked in. The dead town lay behind her, and it would be easy enough to return to when she was done surveying the area.  
Small scatterings of buildings appeared, and then bigger, more impressive buildings. At last, she came upon a glass castle - there was no other way she could think to describe it. The castle - and some of the smaller buildings surrounding it, for that matter - far outdated those in the dead town. It stood nearly as tall as Atlantis, the glass walls all gleaming in the sun.  
Had the Raldians just… moved house? This technology was of a much higher level than anything she’d seen from the Raldians. The jump in technology could only mean that they’d had help… or that this wasn’t them at all. She narrowed her eyes as she stared at it.  
Then, she shook herself mentally. Whatever the case was, if she wanted to save Sheppard and Ronon, she would have to go down there, and investigate. She flew around until she found a good place to land, then lowered the ship.  
When the ramp slid silently down to let her out, she was met by several guns pointed directly at her face.  
“Hi guys,” she said, slowly raising her hands above her head.  
None of them spoke. They didn’t make any moves against her either, of which she was relieved.  
“I’m here to get my crew back,” she told them.  
They parted, leaving a path between them and down the ramp.  
She waited a moment for instruction, but they still said nothing. Shrugging, she stepped forward and moved through them, ensuring her actions were slow and steady. “Take me to your leader,” she said, dry smile on her face.  
None of them laughed. Probably didn’t get the reference, she supposed.  
They started walking alongside her, guns still aimed at her, and led her toward the glass castle.

 

The castle’s front door was thick glass, behind which was a glass table with a red rug over it, and what she assumed was another set of doors leading into other parts of the castle. Inside walls of the castle seemed to be frosted over, so it was hard to say what lay further inside.  
Carter stopped a few paces from the door and looked to her guides. “Do I knock?”  
None of them responded.  
She shrugged. “I’ll just wait here then.”  
She did as much, taking in her surroundings. There wasn’t much to look at inside the castle itself, so she surveyed the grounds outside. The yard, immediately in front of the castle, was pristine.  
Grass, all trimmed to the same height. Flower bushes that had buds similar to roses (though she was pretty sure they weren’t roses - they were all mottled purple, unlike anything she had seen before). A white pebble path - the one her guides had led her up to get to where they are now.  
The area was free of trees, as if the idea of something blocking their view was a monstrosity. In fact, Carter wondered about the occupants’ intentions with the glass castle. Everything about the castle and its surrounds was transparent, in plain sight.  
It was a daring move, actually. It said “we don’t fear you”, that “we fear nothing”. Only those who hide have something to fear. Whoever lived here clearly had no reservations about being out in the open, where anyone could come along and see them. They weren’t afraid of being attacked.  
Why would anyone do that, unless they were confident they could take on any danger facing them?  
Carter swallowed. These people were getting more and more dangerous by the minute, in her eyes. Had she truly made the best choice about coming here, alone, to negotiate? These people clearly didn’t think her a threat - or anyone else - which meant they were probably high on the offense.  
All she had was herself. And a dagger and her P90, which was slung over her front.  
Why hadn’t they taken it from her? Even if they had guns aimed at her, they should have taken her weapons from her in case - surely. That is, unless they didn’t consider her a threat.  
If she was right, they must think her harmless.  
If they thought her to be harmless, not a threat, then either they didn’t know who they were dealing with and were making a huge mistake she was soon going to enlighten them on, or she was in danger.  
Carter glanced around her, surveying the area some more. Escape routes: minimal. There was no way she could take on all the people surrounding her. She counted them in her head. Fourteen of them.  
All were armed, had their guns pointed at her, and all wore vacant expressions. Almost too vacant, now she thought about it. Something weird was going on. Before she had time to consider what, the door before her swung open, silently and eerily. No one was on the other side.  
She looked at her new gun-wielding ‘friends’ for an indication of what she was meant to do. Should she wait? Should she go in? But they didn’t move. They simply stood there and waited, staring into space. None of them had so much as flinched when the door open.  
She let out a sigh, and then at once, they all lowered their weapons, though they still cut off her access to the yard. The open doors lay before her.  
Carter waited a moment, watching them. Then, she took a deep breath and stepped inside.

 

There was something unsettling about being inside a castle made entirely of glass. While the frosted glass helped obscure other rooms and took the oddness out of that part, at least, she still felt like she was on display. She felt as if she were out in the open, although she was indoors.  
Her insides felt too warm, and her skin was unpleasantly warm too. Sunlight beat down through the glass, heating it and everything inside; she imagined during the night or during winter, the castle would feel intolerably icy.  
A design flaw? Or… as she walked down the hallway and opened a door - with a sliver of metal in the place of a doorknob - into another room, she realised that maybe it wasn’t. Only those affected by heat or ice would consider it a design flaw.  
In the room before her, a rich green rug went up the middle of the room to a throne. On either side of the rug, soldiers stood with their backs inhumanly straight, and their chests unmoving. Carter squinted at the nearest one, and her eyes widened.  
This close, she could see that some of his skin was torn away, exposing metal underneath.  
“Robots?” she said. Though she spoke the question to herself, she received an answer from someone further down the hallway, startling her back into movement - her hand went to her P90 and gripped it tight.  
“AI,” the voice boomed. “Robot is such a… human word. Dirty. Demeaning.”  
“Ah, sorry?”  
The voice didn’t respond.  
Carter glanced at the AIs on either side of the rug and swallowed. None of them moved, but she felt their eyes on her. If she made one wrong step…  
She stepped forwards and slowly made her way between them, down the rug. The rug’s shaggy texture was easy to walk on after the slippery, gleaming glass.  
“Who are you?” she asked. The voice - which came from a figure on a throne at the far end of the rug - said nothing. She kept walking. When she was nearer to the end of the rug, she tried again. “Who are you?”  
“I am pain. I am death. I am your worst nightmare.” The figure moved its hand gracefully in swirling gestures, though she couldn’t say if it was actually gesturing at anything or just moving for the sake of moving.  
“Uh, I meant your name,” Carter said dryly.  
The figure stopped moving its hand, stopped moving at all. “Oh.”  
She raised an eyebrow. Was it… flustered?  
“My name is… forgotten. I am pain. I am death. I am - “  
“Yes, you mentioned that before. Where are my men?”  
“Your - ?”  
“John Sheppard and Ronon Dex. You have them prisoner.” She folded her arms across her chest, over her P90; it dug into her arm. “I’m Colonel Carter. I’m here to negotiate for them.”  
“The men you speak of are not known to me. Perhaps you went looking in the wrong castle.”  
She eyed the figure. She couldn’t make out a face, let alone any other identifying features. The figure’s hood was dark and covered much; a dark veil hid the figure’s face as well. Human or AI? She had no idea.  
“I’m pretty sure I’m in the right place,” she replied easily.  
“Are you here with lunch?” the figure asked, after a pause.  
Carter nearly choked on her next breath. She took a moment to swallow and collect herself before she asked, “What?”  
“I ordered pie.”  
“Uh, no? I’m here to rescue my friends.”  
The figure stood up, and cocked its head to the side. “But I’ve been waiting for so long.”  
“Can’t help you there, uh, Forgotten. I’m going to call you Forgotten.” Carter glanced back down the hall, and wondered how many of the soldiers she could take on before they finished her.  
“Maybe you can. If you bring me lunch, my people will help you find your friends.”  
“Uh… okay?” she agreed. “Where can I get your lunch?” She shrugged internally. If Forgotten was willing to let her go to fetch lunch, she could play along and then just not come back. She could slip away and find her boys.  
It wasn’t exactly the moral thing to do, but when it came to life or death situations, morals could only be kept to some extent, assuming you wanted to continue breathing.  
Or maybe she would play along and return with lunch. What did she have to lose?  
Only the lives of two of her people, she told herself, dread sitting uncomfortably in her stomach.  
Forgotten rose from the throne without warning, and Carter took an involuntary step back. The nearest soldier - previously frozen in place - moved over and stood beside Forgotten, listening intently to something Carter couldn’t hear.  
Then, the soldier walked to her and stood by her side.  
Forgotten announced, “This soldier will guide you.”  
Carter opened her mouth and shut it again. Play along, she reminded herself. The sooner she found a way out of the hallway they were in, the sooner she could find her friends, wherever they may be. “You’ll help find my friends after?”  
“I will.” Forgotten bowed low, and then straightened and sat back down at the throne.  
She nodded. “Okay.” To the soldier, she said, “Show me where to go.”

 

The soldier leapt into action, not a word spoken - something that was making her wonder. Were these soldiers even sentient? Were they aware of what was going on? Or were they programmed with the basics, just enough to get by, as she suspected?  
The soldier guiding her was fast. She let her thoughts drift for the moment and focussed on keeping up with it. It led her past the throne at the end of the room and into another doorway there. Through another empty room. Another doorway that led to a room filled with empty bookshelves.  
The next room had a bed frame, bedside tables, and a dresser, all bare.  
The next was a kitchen.  
It too held only the skeletons of what should be in such a room. The soldier stopped and stood there, unmoving. Carter watched it expectantly, waiting,  
“Uh, now what?”  
The soldier said nothing. The red of its suit was harsh under the light beaming through the glass ceiling.  
“I’m supposed to get Forgotten lunch from here?”  
Again, nothing.  
Carter sighed, and started to look around. A quick search of the room revealed that what looked to be a fridge was a solid box, and the pantry was bare. The sink had intricately designed taps that didn’t provide water. The stovetop was the most workable item in the room - only because if you had the materials to make a fire, you could probably set it up on the top.  
There was no food in sight. Carter turned to the soldier, and cleared her throat. “Uh.” Then, it occurred to her. “Guard the door. I’ll be a few minutes.”  
The soldier didn’t move for a moment, and she began to wonder if it would at all. With a sharp turn, though, it moved outside the door and stopped, facing outward. Just where she wanted it to be.  
Carter opened the pantry and closed it again. She banged on some of the furniture, making some noise. She glanced at the soldier - who was paying her no attention. Good.  
Reaching down, she pulled open the pocket to her uniform, and slid out a protein bar. As quietly as possible, her fingers danced at the wrapper and slid it off. She discarded it back in her pocket. Then, she took a moment longer to give the illusion she had spent more time assembling lunch for Forgotten than she actually had.  
When she was satisfied enough time had passed, she approached the soldier waiting outside the door. “I’ve got it,” she said. The soldier barely looked at her before turning and leading her back to the throne room and Forgotten.  
Forgotten peered down at the protein bar from his throne. “This isn’t pie.”  
“No,” Carter agreed. “I couldn’t find any pie. This is the next best thing. You’ll love it.”  
Forgotten stared at her. She assumed. She still couldn’t make much out underneath his hood.  
“It contains all the necessary nutrients for, ah…” she trailed off, still not sure why an AI wanted food.  
“It supports human life?” Forgotten asked.  
“Yes,” she said. “And it’s, uh, tasty too.”  
“Excellent.” Forgotten nodded, and then stood. “Follow me,” he said, waving a hand in a gesture that in no way indicated he wished for her to follow him.  
Carter quirked an eyebrow, but moved after him, confused not only by the odd gesture, but the sudden change of heart Forgotten seemed to have had.  
He led her out through the same door the soldier had taken her through and down another corridor. At the end of the corridor was a large metal vault door, round, thick, and guarded by another dozen soldiers.  
Forgotten nodded at them, his hood bobbing. The two closest to the door turned, and placed their hands simultaneously on two pads on opposite sides of the door. With a loud thud, the door unlocked, and slowly swung open to reveal…  
A pantry. One filled with sandwiches, pies, and other baked goods. Cold mist gushed out as Forgotten walked in, solemnly placed the protein bar on an empty shelf space, and then left. The massive door ground shut behind him.  
“What was that?” Carter asked, staring at him incredulously.  
Forgotten gave her a look. “For Master, when she returns, of course.”  
“Master?”  
“She took good care of us. And then she had to leave. A ship flew overhead, and there was a flash of light, then she was gone.”  
Carter nodded. “Wraith?”  
“She’ll come back.”  
“How long has she been away?”  
“The buzzing ships that took Master stopped coming for a while. I was getting worried. But then they started coming back, so I’m sure she’ll be back any day now.”  
Carter stared at Forgotten. “Do you mean in the last Culling? That was almost a thousand years ago!”  
“Culling? What is that?”  
“When the ships come, and take people.”  
“Oh. Yes. The time between the last time we saw one of the ships and this time was one thousand, two hundred and forty-three years. And 9 days.”  
“Oh.” Carter frowned. “And you’ve been waiting all this time for your Master to return?”  
“Yes.”  
“And... gathering food for her?”  
“It was difficult. For a long time, there were no people. We made food out of wood and rocks but I don’t think it was quite right.Then people came and built a town. We asked them for food. They gave it to us in return for our protection.”  
“Protection against who?” asked Carter.  
“The other ones. They live in a cave in the mountains. They don’t make food, and they keep trying to break our castle. We set a few of them on fire as a polite warning, but they died. Their friends didn’t come back after that.”  
“Did the cave people attack the town?”  
“No.”  
“But it is destroyed.”  
“Yes.”  
“You didn’t protect it?” Carter asked.  
“The buzzing ships did it. We agreed to protect them against the cave people. They didn’t ask about the other. Maybe they’ll come back with the Master. I think she’d like them.”  
“Have you seen the cave people recently?”  
Forgotten tilted his head to the side, as if considering his answer. Then he said, “Only when they attacked and captured two people from a ship like yours.”  
“...That would be Sheppard and Ronon. My men.”  
“The ones you asked about before? Oh good. Then you know where they are now. That’s nice.”  
Carter ground her teeth. The AI were almost cute, in a brain-damaged puppy kind of way, but they were irritating and rather slow.  
“Look, I need to find them, and rescue them. The Raldians - the ones who you were getting food from - they might...might not be back for a while. I can make sure you have food for the Master in the meantime. If you help me.”  
Forgotten stared at her. “Hmm. Okay. I was going to dust off a recipe for pie made from scrap metal, but the Master might like these protein bars more.”  
“I only have a few left,” Carter said, patting her pockets, “but I can contact my people and arrange for more to be brought here. Once my people are returned, that is.”  
“Agreed. To the war room!” declared Forgotten, before he strode away.  
Carter barely kept up.

The war room, as it turned out, was yet another room that appeared to be modelled on the types of rooms she was familiar with, but was sorely lacking in essential details. For example, the large map in its centre didn’t technically appear to resemble the surrounding area at all. In fact, it much more resembled a map of Westeros.  
When she thought about it, there may have been a few Game of Thrones novels amongst the supplies they traded with the Raldians - little tokens of Earth culture. Forgotten and his AIs must have acquired the book from them and ripped out the map.  
Either that or Forgotten and his AIs had been a part of the group scavenging the Raldians’ town.  
The weapons that lined the walls also turned out to be the missing kitchen utensils, although some of them were rather large. A five-foot long metal spatula looked to be the most dangerous. Aside from that, pots and pans, and even a few whisks were amongst the supplies.  
Carter glanced at the very real looking guns the soldiers held.  
“Can you shoot that pan?” she asked one, pointing at the wall across from her.  
It didn’t move for a long moment, then smoothly raised it weapon, and fired. A bolt of orange light slammed across the room, and blew a hole through the pan. And the wall. Carter stared at the glowing hole for a moment.  
“These are kitchen utensils,” she told Forgotten. “Why are they in your war room?”  
Forgotten dropped his head. “Is it not pleasing?”  
“No, no. I just mean it’s very… threatening. I just… do you have any more guns?”  
Forgotten lifted his head and seemed to brighten considerably. “Of course. The guns are in the tea room. They catch the light beautifully in there.”  
Carter’s jaw hurt. And she had the start of a headache. “Maybe we could go there then?”  
“Tea? Before a battle? Hmm, very well. Assemble all available soldiers in the tearoom!” he suddenly snapped at a nearby soldier. “And boil the kettle.”  
He strode away again, this time to the room next door. And again, Carter barely kept up.  
Forgotten swung open the door to the tea room, revealing row after row of gleaming guns in neat racks, with several soldiers carefully repairing some. Light glittered off the guns, just as Forgotten had said.  
The glass wall opposite revealed a neat garden outside; it was visible through a window that essentially was a frame of wood embedded in the glass wall, containing another glass panel within it. Beside the window, inside the tea room, was a small table with two chairs.  
In the center of the tea room, on a bench surrounded by gun parts, was a cup and saucer, and a slowly boiling kettle. The kettle eventually whistled, and one of the soldiers began to assemble a cup of tea. When done, the soldier stood back. Forgotten made another odd gesture to Carter, and told her, “Your tea is ready.”  
She sat down with a quick, “Thanks,” and peered into the cup. It was a dirty brown, but didn’t smell like tea. If anything, it had to be dirty hot water. It had probably been awhile since they’d had visitors. And she wasn’t sure if AI were programmed with hygiene etiquette.  
She looked up again, surveying the room as more soldiers poured in, each of them collecting a gun and then standing to attention in the cramped space. “How many men do you have?”  
“Men?”  
“Uh, soldiers.”  
“Two hundred and thirty seven, and one half.”  
“Half?”  
“No legs, but can still shoot.”  
“Okay, great. Let’s get going then.”  
Forgotten looked at her blankly. “You’re going too?”  
“Yes,” said Carter.  
“But you’re human. You won’t survive.”  
“I’m going,” Carter said. “That’s final.” She did her best to reel in the anger that came up with all implications that she wasn’t up to the job. That, and she didn’t trust Forgotten to not disappear for months - or longer - and return with a single croissant or something.  
“Very well,” Forgotten said. “You will take a gun.”  
“Yes,” she agreed. She patted the P90 slung across her front. “I brought my own.”  
“Oh. How polite. Well then, shall we?”  
“Indeed,” Carter said with a slight smile.

 

Carter and Forgotten stormed through the brush, two hundred and thirty seven (and one half) soldiers behind them. They followed a beaten path, worn there by previous travellers; they moved through trees, and past large rocks and more brush.  
“How much further?” Carter asked.  
“Not too much more. A few days at most.”  
Carter frowned. Days? That couldn’t be right.  
About an hour later, they neared some caves. Forgotten pointed at the sky, another gesture Carter couldn’t decipher. “They live there.”  
“I thought you said they’re a few days away.”  
“Has it not been a few days?”  
Carter watched Forgotten reposition his hood, but said nothing. What was there to say? Obviously, something was off about or had glitched within the AIs time sensors. She considered explaining that it had maybe been an hour, but what good would that do?  
She settled on telling him, “No,” and left the explaining to Forgotten’s Master should she ever return.  
“Oh.”  
As they moved over the next little hill and closer to the caves, Carter felt a prickling at her neck. Just as she was wondering what had caused it, she caught a flicker of movement out of the corner of her eye. Then more movement.  
Across from them, a small army poured out from one of the cave entrances. More trickled out behind them. They were tall, all slender, flesh pulled over bones. Sallow shadows under eyes. Pale skin. Unhealthy as they looked, the guns in their hands made them significantly more menacing.  
“Those look like your guns,” Carter said to Forgotten.  
“Yes. We gave them some. It wouldn’t be fair otherwise.”  
Carter stared at Forgotten as the cave people ran towards them, screaming but for some reason not yet firing. She had come to a very important decision.  
“You distract them. I’ll go and rescue Sheppard and Ronon,” she said.  
“Hmm. Okay. Would shooting at them help?” Forgotten asked.  
Carter opened her mouth to yell, “yes”, and possible several other words, when the AI soldiers opened fire.  
Forgotten nodded his head sagely, as though that had been his order, and then ran into the battle.  
Carter ducked into the bushes, and began to work her way around the side of the defending cave people. They all seemed to have charged out at once, and she managed to make her way into the caves relatively quickly.  
The cave walls were stone, and every few metres torch sconces were attached at head level, providing just enough light to see by. Carter jogged down the main corridor; small rooms branched off from it every so often. Judging by the slight curve and the incline, she was heading deeper underground in a relaxed spiral.  
This was in no way Carter’s first “rescue your team who got themselves captured and stuck in a cave”. The infuriating and kinda adorable robots were a new aspect, but she figured she had the cave part down by now. They never put the captives at the very bottom, unless they were really valuable or dangerous, and they for some reason almost always kept prisoners near the food stores. She smelled something very much like bacon, and took a right.  
This twisty passage ended in a large room lit by a central fire pit. Racks of food hung all around the room, and at the far end, she could make out a crude, but very solid wooden door that had been built across a crevice. She heard voices.  
“Look, I’m just saying, there’s obviously some sort of fight going on out there, and now would be a great time to bust the door down and escape.” It was a voice she instantly recognised.  
“I’ve already done that,” growled another familiar voice.  
“Yeah, but now it’s kinda more urgent, so, let’s try it again?”  
“Fine.”  
As she approached the door, Carter heard shuffling, and then the sound of someone running.  
She couldn’t resist, and flipped the latch on the door up, before quickly moving aside.  
Sheppard and Ronon tumbled to her feet as the door slammed open under their combined weight. Sheppard groaned, and Ronon grunted his annoyance. “You didn’t think to check it was locked?” Ronon pointed out.  
Sheppard opened his mouth to respond and then saw a pair of shoes before him… and legs. He looked further up. “Oh, hey, Carter.”  
“Are you going to get up so we can get out of here, or would you like some more time to rest?” she teased.  
Though Sheppard rolled his eyes, he accepted the hand she offered. As Carter pulled Sheppard up, Ronon climbed to his feet and started brushing himself off.  
“What’s the plan?” Ronon asked.  
“No ‘nice to see you’? No ‘thanks for saving my life’?” Carter gestured for them to follow, and kept her eyes on the corridors as they started for the exit.  
“Thanks,” Ronon said gruffly.  
“Yeah, thanks,” Sheppard agreed. “Much appreciated. Now, the plan?”  
“We heard fighting,” Ronon added. It was more of a question than statement.  
“The plan involves me getting you two the hell out. Forgotten’ll take care of the rest.” Carter smirked when they looked at her in confusion.  
“Who?” Sheppard asked.  
“You’ll see.”  
“I need my gun.” said Ronon. Again, a statement rather than a question or a request.  
“It’s probably a level or so down, with the rest of their loot. Might be guarded, even with the fight going on outside.” said Carter.  
Sheppard and Ronon exchanged a glance.  
“I’ve been doing this for a while guys. Come on, we’ve only got a few more minutes before the cave people throw their reserves into the fight.”  
“How do you know they have reserves?” asked Sheppard as they changed direction and began to move further down into the caves.  
“They always have reserves. Otherwise, everything would be too easy.”  
Sheppard tilted his head and gave her a look that suggested he would very much like for her to be wrong, but knew she was right. Of course.  
Carter shrugged. And then stopped walking abruptly; Sheppard ran into her, but Ronon was able to stop in time. “Hear that?” she whispered.  
They listened.  
Voices. And footsteps coming their way.  
Ronon backed up a bit and moved into one of the side rooms. “In here,” he said. The other two followed him.  
They climbed into what appeared, at a glance, to be a storage room. Another glance revealed that it was indeed a storage room - for the guns that the cave people’s reserves were rushing to collect. Carter nudged the others and pointed at the guns, a difficult motion to make given the cramped space.  
“Crap,” Sheppard swore.  
Ronon winced, and then shrugged. He glanced outside. “They’re too close.”  
“Guess we’re in for some close quarter combat,” Carter said. “Which would be kind of funny, if we’d ended up in one of their quarters, rather than a storage room.”  
“Ha. Well, at least we’ve got weapons now. In fact...” Sheppard hauled up a backpack from behind a crate. “We’ve got our weapons.” He handed Ronon his gun, and passed another gun to Carter.  
Guns in hand, they made best of the space they had as quickly as they could. Carter crouched on the floor with her gun aimed forward, Sheppard bent down slightly to her left, and Ronon stood behind them with his gun aimed over the tops of their heads.  
It wasn’t the most comfortable, but it’d do the trick. Sure enough, when the first of the cave people swung open the door, three bullets took him down fast. The next few cave people were immediately behind him and went down quickly too.  
It was the few after that would pose a problem; they were further back, out of firing range, and couldn’t have missed the sound of gunfire. No longer did they have the element of surprise on their side.  
They could hear angry yelling from outside the door.  
“How many do you think there are?” asked Sheppard.  
“Fifteen,” said Carter and Ronon simultaneously. The glanced at each other.  
“Give or take a few,” Carter added.  
“Any chance of backup?” asked Sheppard.  
Carter thought of the probability that Forgotten would realise they were in trouble and come help. She still wasn’t one hundred percent sure that Forgotten was friendly, in any case. She hoped he was. The quirky AI had begun to grow on her.  
“No,” she said. “Almost certainly not.”  
“So we’ve got to get ourselves out of this. Ideas?” Sheppard said, firing of a shot at a cave person who’d stuck their nose round the door.  
“Shoot them,” said Ronon.  
“We’ll definitely include that. However,” Carter said, glancing around. “There might be another option.”  
She picked up a fist-sized metal object with a string attached. “We could also blow them up.”  
Ronon nodded in approval, but Sheppard shook his head.  
“We’re in a cave. Won’t that bring it down on our heads?”  
“Maybe,” Carter said, “but our other option is to stay here until we run out of ammo.”  
They all looked around at the piles of guns around them.  
“Or starve to death,” she amended.  
“I say we hold,” Sheppard said. “We’ve got enough ammo to last us, what?”  
“A few weeks?” Ronon guessed.  
“Is that a box of grenades?” Carter interrupted.  
“Looks like.” said Ronon.  
“Okay. I have a really stupid idea,” said Carter.  
“I didn’t think you could have stupid ones.” said Sheppard, with a small smile.  
“So, we light the fuses on the grenades in the box, throw it into the corridor, and then run like hell.” said Carter.  
Sheppard’s smile faltered, and he raised an eyebrow at her. “That… is possibly the worst idea I have ever heard. We were worried about one grenade, and you want to set off a whole box?”  
“Well, yeah. There are too many of them for us to fight through, but they don’t have many guns. We have most of them here. And they won’t want to stick around and wait for the grenades to go off either.”  
“Still involves us probably getting blown up,” said Sheppard. He ran a hand through his hair, nearly taking out Ronon’s eye to do so.  
Carter shrugged. “This whole cave system is a hive of tunnels and caverns. It spirals. We should be able to blow our way down a level.”  
“We’ll still be able to get out if this way is blocked?”  
Carter thought about it for a moment, running through the mental map she’d made as she’d searched for them. “There’s another way up. It was more heavily guarded though. But…”  
“They’re probably the guys outside our door right now.” said Sheppard. “Okay, let’s do this.”  
The grenade box was heavy, but Ronon hefted it onto his shoulder.  
“Okay, so we light it, toss it, wait, then run. Like, really, really run,” said Sheppard.  
Carter quickly lit a few of the fuses, and Ronon tossed the box through the door. Angry yells turned to panicked screams, and then there was a frantic pattering of running feet.  
“Go!”  
When they were halfway down the tunnel, the floor dropped from beneath their feet. They landed with a massive crash another dozen meters down, rubble pouring down beside them. A quick look around revealed they were now in a very large cave, with fancy ornaments and a large table.  
Slowly, they got back to their feet.  
“You think that distracted them?” muttered Sheppard.  
“Hope so,” said Carter, wincing and holding her arm. “I think this is their chief's room. Or something like it.” The room had a bed, a dresser, and a metallic chamber that Carter was unfamiliar with. The furnishings were much more elegant than those she’d seen in other rooms.  
“Here,” Ronon said, already moving towards a nearby upwards sloping passage, past the dresser. This passage was much smaller than the other ones, and Ronon in particular had to hunch down to pass through it. But it sloped upwards steeply and evenly, until they saw sunlight ahead.  
Pushing through the heavy vines that covered the exit, they found themselves on a small ledge above the main cave entrance. The ledge overlooked the battlefield - now filled with the bodies of fallen cave people and AI alike. The battle continued as they watched.  
“Sneaky spy post, nice.” said Sheppard. Then he glanced over his shoulder and added, “You’re going to explain what the hell is happening now, right?”  
Carter shrugged. “There’s a battle between cave people and AI. And I just rescued you both.” She put her hands on her hips. “You?”  
“Huh?” Sheppard grunted.  
Ronon rolled his eyes.  
“Tell me about the people that kidnapped you. And what do they want?”  
“Well, I guess I should start at the beginning,” Sheppard said with a sigh. “We came to this planet on a routine mission to check in with the Raldians. You know. See how they’re doing, if there’s anything worth trading, keep our relationship with them steady. Only, when we got here, things didn’t so much go to plan.”  
Ronon nodded his agreement. “There was no one there,” he filled in.  
“Their town?”  
“Might as well have been razed to the ground. Everything damaged, ruined food everywhere, and no signs of life. We thought they had been attacked.”  
“Looked like it could be wraith,” Ronon put in.  
“I saw the town when I flew in.” Carter frowned. Then, she said, “I’m sensing a ‘but’.”  
“No but. They were attacked. We just don’t know by what - if it was Wraith or these guys. But some of these guys-” Sheppard said, pointing down below at the battle, “were there skulking around. They were there to scavenge anything left behind, we later realised.”  
“That’s when things went bad,” Ronon said.  
“We approached them to see if they were friendly and knew about the Raldians, what had happened to them.”  
“They knew. They did it,” chipped in Ronon. He patted his gun. “Attacked us before we could ask them anything.”  
“McKay and Teyla got away, but they turned out to have more guys than we thought. They…”  
Ronon smirked.  
“What?” Carter prompted them to go on.  
“They knocked me out,” John admitted, looking away. “There were, how many? A dozen of them?”  
“I got away,” Ronon said, “and attempted a rescue later. Tracked him to the caves, and nearly got him out.”  
Sheppard nodded. “But more of them showed up and we both got knocked out.”  
Carter held up a finger, and stared back down the tunnel they’d left the caves through. She glanced around them some more, checking they were still alone and that no one had become aware of their presence. “Sorry,” she said, when there was nothing. “Thought I heard something.”  
Sheppard continued. “After that, they dragged us to the caves. They wanted to talk to our leader, so we convinced them to let us contact McKay and Teyla on the comms. And they contacted you.”  
“What do they want from us?”  
“No idea,” Sheppard said. “Could just be we got in their way and they figured they’d see if they could shake something out of us before putting bullets in our heads.”  
“I’m fine not finding out,” Ronon said helpfully.  
Carter paused for moment, then nodded. “Yeah, guess it doesn’t matter. Let’s get back to the puddle jumper. I left it parked at Forgotten’s castle.”  
“His what? He has a castle now? Who is this guy?” said Sheppard.  
“He’s… not really a guy exactly. I think. He’s an AI, one left in charge of his Master’s castle. The others are only drones from what I can tell, but he’s just smart enough to be really kind of stupid,” explained Carter. “I traded his help for a protein bar.”  
“Huh,” Sheppard said. “We can trust him?”  
Carter shrugged. Then she added, “he’s stockpiling food for his Master’s return. Though I don’t think she’s going to return.”  
“Why not?” Ronon asked.  
“It sounded like she was around during the last culling.”  
“Wasn’t that a thousand years ago?”  
Carter simply nodded.  
“Ah. Yeah, probably not coming back from that,” said Sheppard.  
“We should move,” said Ronon. Carter couldn’t tell if he hadn’t heard about the part about the thousand-year-old AI or just didn’t care.  
They managed to climb down from the ledge using the thick vines that concealed the hidden cave entrance, and were soon sneaking back through the bushes, the same way Carter had snuck in. When she could see the clearing she’d last seen Forgotten in, she stopped.  
“What is it?” asked Sheppard, quietly. They were a little away from the battle, but still remained hidden.  
“Looking for Forgotten. If he hasn’t gotten himself killed.”  
“No, I’m fine,” came a voice from behind Ronon.  
Ronon spun, raising his gun, only to have the cloaked and hooded figure of Forgotten slap it neatly out of his hand.  
“He’s a friend, Forgotten.”  
“Oh. Good! I like friends.” Forgotten leaned over, picked up Ronon’s gun, brushed it off, and then handed it back to him.  
Sheppard quirked an eyebrow at Carter.  
She shrugged. “Forgotten, we’ve got who we came for. We can fall back now.”  
“Oh, but we’ve almost won! I think. Depends if 692 starts fighting or not,” said Forgotten.  
Carter looked at Forgotten. Stared. Counted to ten inside her head and, almost already knowing the answer, asked, “Who - or what - is 692?”  
“An advanced combat model the Master was making when she got taken. He was going to be my replacement. But she went away before she gave him command of the castle, so I told him to go away. He didn’t like what I was doing, said the Master was dead. Very rude of him.”  
Sheppard looked at Carter. “That sounds bad.”  
“Yeah. Forgotten, let’s leave, right now. Before 692 turns up.”  
“Very well. The soldiers will disengage when there’s an opening. We should just head off now,” he said.  
“Lead the way,” said Carter.

 

The walk back seemed much faster. Forgotten seemed to have an easier time finding the castle than he did the caves.  
Sheppard’s eyes went wide when he finally saw the castle. “Is that-?”  
“Glass, yes. Most of it anyway. Or at least, it’s something that looks a lot like glass,” said Carter.  
“The majority of the matrix is silicon, but the right smattering of trace elements enhance its strength to something on par with high-quality steel,” Forgotten explained.  
Carter glanced at him. He’d been oddly silent most of the walk back. “Really? That’s an impressive engineering feat.”  
“The Master was an impressive person,” said Forgotten.  
Carter stared at him for another second, and then nodded. They could see the puddle jumper ahead, parked outside the castle itself.  
“I’m sure she was. Anyway, here.” She pulled out her radio.  
Forgotten looked at it. “What is that for?”  
“Payment, remember?” she said.  
Sheppard glanced at her. Ronon shifted his stance slightly.  
“Oh, yes. Of course. My apologies.” Forgotten reached out for the radio.  
Carter stepped back. “What did you ask me for when we first met?” she said.  
“Hmm?” said Forgotten.  
“When we met, you asked me for something. Tell me what it is.”  
Forgotten didn’t move. It was almost as if he’d frozen. Then, he said, “The radio, of course.”  
“And where did we meet?”  
Forgotten took another pause. “Oh. I see. I’m impressed you noticed so quickly.”  
“Noticed what?” Ronon said.  
Carter raised her weapon. Sheppard and Ronon quickly did so too, though more hesitantly.  
“You’re 692.” Carter frowned.  
“Yes. What gave me away?” asked the hooded figure.  
“A few little things, but mainly, you said your Master was impressive. Forgotten is still waiting for her. You know she’s gone. That, and you asked me for pie when we first met.”  
“Pie?” Sheppard shook his head in disbelief.  
Carter ignored him, and kept going. “You didn’t ask for the radio at all.”  
“A lovely subterfuge. I assume I also didn’t act quite scatter-brained enough to pass as that idiot. What did you call him? Forgotten? Has he really lost his name?” 692 smirked.  
“Apparently,” said Carter.  
“She left him in charge. He’s the accursed butler and she left him in charge. I’m smarter, faster, stronger, and none of it mattered. She didn’t give me the control codes, and now she never can. So he sits in my castle, ruining everything, and I live in a cave with humans!” spat 692.  
“You’re the cave people's leader,” Sheppard deduced.  
“It is easy enough. Break enough spines and people will follow.”  
“Yeah, well, that’s finished,” said Ronon.  
“Yes, yes it is. Thanks to you. I’m only slightly annoyed, by the way. I never really cared for any of those hole-dwellers, and you’ve brought me something very nice indeed, haven’t you?” 692’s hood turned to face the puddle jumper.  
“You’re not going anywhere,” said Sheppard. “And definitely not in our ride.”  
“I’ve never seen its like before. And the Master had a vast library of other worlds. You will take me to your world. It must be amazing.”  
“Not happening,” said Carter.  
“Oh,” 692 seemed to deflate. He cheered up quickly, though. “Oh well. On to the spine-breaking then.” 692 blurred, and almost flew towards Ronon. He grabbed Ronon’s arm and lifted, sending the shot wild, before his other hand slammed into Ronon’s chest and knocked him into a tree.  
Sheppard and Carter opened fire, but 692 dropped to the ground before scuttling on all-fours like a spider under a blanket, seemingly unhindered by his cloak. He darted towards Sheppard, swooping up and taking several rounds from Sheppard's P-90 as he did so. He swatted the gun from Sheppard’s hands, and threw a scything punch at Sheppard’s head.  
Sheppard ducked just in time, rolling away and drawing his sidearm. 692 took one step towards him when Carter finally managed to unload almost a full clip into his back. Sparks flew, and 692 fell to the ground limply.  
Sheppard got to his feet, pistol still trained on 692’s slumped, cloak-cover form. “Hey, Ronon! You okay, buddy?”  
An angry groan was his reply as Ronon got slowly to his feet. “Is it dead?” he asked.  
“I think he’s incapacitated at the least,” said Carter.  
A grinding click sounded from underneath the cloak, and the fabric twitched. They all opened fire again.  
“Is it dead now?” asked Ronon.  
“I vote for not staying to find out,” said Sheppard. “This is the part of the movie when the good guys go to check the bad guy is dead, and then one of them dies.”  
“Works for me,” said Carter.  
“Oh, that’s where my cloak went!” came a familiar voice.  
They all spun around, guns pointing at a soldier drone that carried a severed, and highly damaged, robot head.  
“Forgotten?” said Carter.  
“Who? Oh, me, right. Yes,” said the head.  
“What happened?” asked Carter.  
“When?”  
“Forgotten, why are you a head, and why does your evil twin have your clothes?” said Carter. She was getting the hang of this. Direct, precise questions only.  
“Oh, I think my evil twin tore my head off and stole my clothes,” answered Forgotten.  
Never mind. Even his actual answers were useless, she thought.  
“Has he self-repaired yet?” said Forgotten.  
“Self-repaired?” said Sheppard.  
They turned back to the body, only to find an empty cloak on the ground.  
“Yes, very advanced. Master was quite proud of that. He’s almost impossible to kill, and can upgrade to be resistant to whatever damaged him last. Very nice. Anyway, who wants breakfast?”  
“Uh, like resistant to gunfire?” Ronon said.  
Forgotten jiggled about. “Oh, wait. My body.” The head glanced up at the soldier, who reached down and shook him up and down slowly. “Gunfire resistance indeed.”  
“Is there a way to disable him?” asked Carter.  
“Nothing I can think of, except the emergency shutdown sequence the Master built in to all of us. The console is in the castle vault,” said Forgotten.  
“Forgotten, you’re amazing. That’s exactly what we want. Can you take us there?” asked Carter.  
“Sure!” said the head, happily.  
A blur burst from the nearby trees, sheared the head off the soldier with a sweep of its arm, and hurled Forgotten’s head into the forest. Forgotten’s scream sounded oddly like “Pies!” as he flew off into the distance.  
692 kept moving, vanishing back into the forest, but not before they managed to hit him a few times. The bullets obviously hurt him, but didn’t seem as damaging as they had before.  
“I think he’s still repairing!” yelled Carter. “If he finishes, we won’t be able to stop him with the weapons we have.”  
“Any ideas?” said Sheppard.  
Carter frowned, thinking back and trying to recall any details that might help them. For some reason, Forgotten’s last screamed word, pies, kept coming back to her. Wait, maybe that was it. The pantry. “I think I know exactly where we need to go.”  
She led Sheppard and Ronon through the glass castle, back past the throne room she’d first met Forgotten in - soldiers still lined the carpet and looked as if they hadn’t moved - and to the door of the pantry. Two more soldiers guarded it. They raised their weapons as they approached.  
“Remember me?” Carter asked them, moving forward slowly with her hands raised and in front of her. The soldiers exchanged a look. “Forgotten sent me. Your, uh, you know. Your leader.”  
At once, they both straightened, and lowered their weapons. Each of them slowly stepped backwards, one to the left and the other the right of the door, leaving an opening for them to pass through.  
Carter smiled. “Thank you. Make sure no one else comes in.”  
They entered and quickly began searching for the console. The pantry was a lot larger and colder than Carter had realised at first, with rows upon rows of shelves stretching back.  
“Not to be a pain,” Sheppard said, “but his name is Forgotten. Are you sure he didn’t just… forget where the switch is?”  
Carter paused. “Maybe? Or he could have been asking for a pie. He’s… not the most coherent. But it’s the best option we have.”  
There was a crunch from the entrance, now out of sight behind shelves of frozen food, and the occasional well-carved rock.  
“Company,” said Ronon.  
“We’ll hold him, you keep searching,” said Sheppard. “You’re probably the only one who can figure out how to use the thing anyway.”  
Carter stepped around another corner, and froze. “Ah, you’d probably figure it out,” she said, as she looked up at a large sign that pointed directly to a big, red button on the wall.

**EMERGENCY SHUTDOWN, FOR EMERGENCIES ONLY. PRESS ONLY IN CASE OF EMERGENCIES.**

“I wonder who wrote that,” she muttered under her breath.  
Behind her, Ronon swore and started firing. Sheppard quickly joined in.  
“He’s dodging between the shelves, but he looks pretty damn repaired to me!” yelled Sheppard.  
“And he brought more friends,” Ronon added. He dived behind one of the many shelves as one of the new cave people shot at him; what looked like a shepherd’s pie fell off the shelf and splattered, face down, on the floor.  
Carter ran to the button, and slammed it. A panel popped open, with a touch screen displaying:

**IS THIS A REAL EMERGENCY? Y/N**

Carter tapped the Y button. The screen changed to: 

**REALLY? Y/N**

Carter groaned. “Seriously?” She hit the Y button again.

**LAST CHANCE. Y/N?**

The Y button protested as Carter slammed it. “That better be the last one,” she swore. Sure enough, the next message confirmed the shutdown. But...

**TIME UNTIL UNTIL SHUTDOWN: 5 MINUTES.**

“It’s going to take a while, guys,” she yelled to her friends, as the screen counted down.  
“There are maybe six guys with guns out there, and I can’t see 692 anymore!” yelled Sheppard over the sound of gunfire.  
Ronon fired off a shot, and there was a muffled scream. “Five now. And I can’t see him either.”  
Carter looked up, and opened fire. 692 clung to the ceiling above their heads, and the armour-piercing rounds of the P-90 shook him loose. He twisted, and landed in a crouch behind Ronon and Sheppard. He kicked out, and swept Sheppard’s legs out from under him.  
Ronon spun around and fired straight into 692’s head before charging at him. 692 reeled from the shot’s impact, but recovered enough to block Ronon’s punch. 692 swung, trying to land a punch of his own, when Carter fired off a single shot at his knee. It pinged off his skin, but knocked his leg slightly, upsetting his balance.  
Ronon took that opportunity to flip 692 into the air bodily, and slam him into a shelf. Before he could recover, Sheppard grabbed the nearest carved-rock food, and slammed the stone pie into 692’s head. There was a crack, and 692 slumped.  
“Is he dead this time?” asked Sheppard.  
“Repairing again. He’s immune to bullets, not pies made out of granite. We should move out before he comes to,” said Carter as she glanced over her shoulder. “The shutdown still has 4 minutes on the clock. We keep away from him that long, we’re good.”  
“You won’t-” said 692, as he groggily began to rise.  
Ronon snatched the rock pie out of Shepard’s hands and hit 692 again, hard. “Shut up.”  
Gunfire pinged past them. “And then there’s those guys,” said Carter.  
Ronon shrugged, picked up 692’s limp form, and tossed him out from behind their shelf.  
692’s body was hit by multiple rounds as he fell over, but the gunfire stopped quickly as the cave people recognised their boss. They stood, staring at his fallen body in confusion.  
Carter, Ronon and Sheppard took that opportunity to shoot them. The glass wall behind them shattered into the hallway. A very slight spray of bullets came back, before the room fell silent again. Carter felt a stinging sensation in her side, but ignored it.

 

Running down the hallway outside of the vault, her side throbbing slightly, Carter pointed and said, “This way to the tea room!”  
“Seriously?” said Sheppard. “You want tea now?”  
“It’s where they keep the guns, and maybe something bigger,” she explained.  
“Of course it is,” he said with a sigh.  
Ronon rolled his eyes and ran ahead to the next room.  
“You okay?” Sheppard asked when he was out of earshot. He reached over and put a hand on Carter’s shoulder, as they walked.  
She looked down at his hand, thrown, and then looked up at him again. “Yeah, why?”  
“You just seem…” He shrugged. “You’re slowing down all of a sudden.”  
“Oh?”  
Before Sheppard could elaborate, there was a grunt from the other room. The two looked at each other, and then picked up speed. They found Ronon attempting to heave the biggest gun in the room out of a concrete mould.  
“That one’s decorative,” Sheppard said. He turned to Carter. “Isn’t it?”  
“Not if I can get it out,” Ronon replied.  
“We don’t have time. We need to find somethingthat doesn’t work on kinetic principles,” said Carter.  
They both looked at her. She sighed. “He’s grown some sort of armour that absorbs kinetic energy. Bullets don’t affect him, and even hitting him probably won’t work. Forgotten’s soldiers had some sort of beam weapon, but I can’t see any here now.”  
“What about that?” said Sheppard, pointing to a small device in a glass case.  
Carter walked over and looked at it. “It has a tea cup with the words ‘Castle Automated Defense Targeting Device’ written on it sitting next to it.”  
“Well that sounds useful,” Sheppard said.  
“Dibs,” said Ronon.  
“Why did I ever teach you about dibs?”  
“Okay, Ronon, we have no idea what the castle’s defense are. Or if this thing actually targets them, or just dispenses milk and sugar. So when 692 turns up, we’ll hold him off while you fire. We only have,” Carter paused to glance at her watch. “Two minutes.”  
There was a smashing sound from the corridor.  
“Right on cue. Let’s go,” said Carter.  
They ducked out into the corridor, to discover a very angry looking 692 running towards them. His skin didn’t look human-like anymore, but a dull metallic black instead.  
“So, my plan,” said 692, “is to ultra-murder you all, then get my people to turn me back on. They know how, and reinforcements will be here soon. Good thing all the soldiers will be down too. Oh,” he added, “did Forgotten not mention that bit? It’s a shutdown for all of us. Good luck fighting off a hundred of my people even if you do somehow survive what I’m about to…”  
He trailed off.  
“Is that the castle’s defense targeting device?” he asked.  
“Yup,” said Carter.  
“Oh,” he said. “Well, frak.”  
Ronon fired, a thin laser hitting 692 in the chest. It was no brighter than a laser pointer.  
Carter, Ronon and Sheppard all glanced at each other. Is that what it was intended to do? Or was it supposed to do something else?  
Suddenly, the castle shifted. Every pane of glass in sight adjusted itself minutely, angling reflected sunlight at 692. He started to glow. Further away, they heard more of the castle rumble and shift, more and more light being diverted onto 692. His cloak began to smoke.  
There was one final click, and a wash of light like a ripple of the sun itself flowed around them, leaving them untouched, but igniting 692, boiling his armour off in seconds.  
He fell to the ground, smouldering, but twitching.  
“Is he still healing?” asked Sheppard.  
“Looks like. Not that it matters, because…” Carter’s watch went off, beeping loudly.  
692 stopped moving instantly.  
“Is he dead now?” asked Ronon with irritation.  
“I don’t think so. He’s been turned off, though,” said Carter after a moment.  
“What do we do about the hundred crazy cave people coming to murder us?” asked Sheppard.  
“Forgotten said that he set them on fire last time. Politely. I assume that,” Carter said, pointing at the device Ronon still held, “is how. We should be able to incinerate a tree or two in front of them and they’ll go away.”  
It didn’t take too long to do just that. Four trees - that had been perfectly trimmed into diamond shapes - were burning merrily, and the previously-approaching army was fleeing as fast as they could run.  
“We should find Forgotten,” said Carter. “He helped us, and if 692’s people could reactivate him, then we can reactivate Forgotten.”  
“Guess he did help out. I’ll grab the scanner from the puddle jumper. It’ll be faster that way,” said Sheppard.

They found Forgotten’s head up a tree a few dozen meters from the puddle jumper. His eyes were closed, and he didn’t speak. Ronon and Sheppard took turns throwing rocks at him to knock his head down. Ronon won, and shot Sheppard a smug grin.  
Carter picked up Forgotten’s fallen head, and flipped it over.  
“He really is very advanced. Just, broken, I guess. I think I can see the secondary power supply that was keeping his head going separate from his body.”  
“Think you can turn him on again?” said Sheppard.  
“Hey, when in doubt, use the old IT standby. I’ll turn him off and on again.”  
Carter reached in, and carefully disconnected Forgotten's power supply. She counted to ten, then hooked it back up.  
“-eeeee oh. Hi. I’m upside down, and also recovering from an emergency reboot,” said the head as its eyes snapped back open. “How are you?”  
Carter grinned. “We’re fine.”  
“You’re bleeding,” Forgotten said.  
“Huh,” Carter said, and glanced down. A bloodstain was spreading slowly on the side of her jacket. “Didn’t really notice. Busy day, and it’s not the first time I’ve been shot. I think it’s just a graze.”  
“We should get back to Atlantis and have Keller check it out anyway,” said Sheppard, concern flickering over his face.  
“Yeah, I think we’re done here. Do you need us to do anything for you Forgotten? Turn some soldiers back on?” asked Carter  
“No. I can do that by remote,” said Forgotten. “One of my soldiers will find my body and repair me.”  
Carter gave him a pointed look. “And you won’t turn 692 back on?”  
“No! Well, not right now. It gets very boring sometimes without him trying to kill me and take over the castle.” Forgotten stared wistfully into the distance. As wistfully as a head could look, anyway.  
“Well. It was nice meeting you,” Carter said, awkwardly reaching down to pat Forgotten’s head. “I’ll just, uh, put you down here. And we’ll have some supplies shipped to you in a month or so, as promised.” She balanced him against the tree they’d found him in.  
That done, she turned to Sheppard and Ronon. “Home?”  
“Home,” they agreed.

 

Back at Atlantis, they were welcomed back by what seemed like half of the mission team. The tech that had assisted Carter in her departure beamed at her across the room. McKay offered a witty comment about them taking forever to get back, paling when Ronon glared at him, and suddenly deciding his skills were needed elsewhere.  
After the initial excitement wore off, Sheppard and Carter escaped the crowd and headed for the infirmary. “Thanks for the rescue,” Sheppard said, offering her a lopsided grin.  
“Any time,” she replied. “Though let’s try not to make this a habit, okay?”  
“Sure,” he said, and wrapped his hand around hers. “Just as long as you make getting shot less of a habit as well.”  
“You think Forgotten will be okay?”  
Shrugging, Sheppard led them into the infirmary, letting go of Carter’s hand as they entered and Keller started fussing over Carter. “Guess we’ll have to go back and check, ship those supplies you promised them.”  
Carter nodded. “Who knows. Maybe they’ll be up for trading some of their pies.”  
“Or that laser weapon,” Sheppard hinted.  
“We’ll see.”

 

_fin._


End file.
